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Lukin's Brief SOTW Tutorial (Feb 2012)

i entered SOTW this week for the first time in a while and tried something i hadn't done before, and i was that pleased with the outcome i thought i'd share some of the techniques that i used in taking a fairly plain image and editing and enhancing it to give it a whole new style and meaning.

the SOTW theme was either Katy Perry or Erotic Art, and i decided early on i wanted to mix the two but wasn't sure how i'd do it. i ran a few basic ideas roughly through photoshop and eventually settled on what you see below. i had originally planned to put Katy's face onto the model, but 1) it was incredibly difficult to do it without ruining the picture, and 2) i decided it felt better to leave it as it is to enhance the 'erotic art' side of it. so ultimately i wanted to take a pin up model, and edit it to reflect the typical style and imagery associated with Katy Perry.

So....

Here's the process step by step (not really a tutorial so forgive the title, but i've added some descriptions as well)

FIRST THE IMAGE

the original image. found randomly through google, credit goes to the talented artist who created it!

cut out the girl to create a transparent background (didn't notice the initials til later in the process!)

trademark blue hair. this was done by creating a copy of just her hair, adjusting hue to create the blue, then adjusting contrast to make it more vivid

images i'd seen of Katy during the "whipped cream bra" scenes showed her wearing stockings so i decided to add one. ultimately decided to add the other leg as well later on

original idea was to just have this can of cream lying next to her (sourced from google images). however, i decided if i was to just leave her naked i might as well use the original images of Katy so...

added a bra draped over her and left another can still attached to it. this was an image of a red bra from google, distorted with the liquify tool and colour intensified

now the infamous clouds. these are from a cap of Katy in the video. all the clouds added are essentially cut/pastes of this layer. here's the foreground

and the background. i also added few more foreground clouds by her arse to create a bit more depth

NOW THE SIG

erased the hard edges of the image and placed within a sig ratio canvas

used the same cloud image again to fill the canvas

adding a blue sky shows the transparency within the clouds and really adds detail and depth to them as well as providing a background to match the music video

decided another stocking would be sexier

i was planning to work something like California Gurl/Girl or California Pinup into the text but couldn't get the position right without getting in the way, so opted for some california themed imaginary, finally settling on a number plate. used an image from google as a template but made this one from scratch over it. just a grey box, text, and 4 holes.

added a big white glare coming in the top of the canvas, and also added a curves layer, adjusted for a vintage kind of look, and slightly increased saturation to brighten the image up

added a shadowed vignette to the image to draw attention inwards and a slight white border round the edge of that

gave the text a classic sort of look with the gradiented border and a slight shadow to create more depth. also left the bottom of the P dropping into clouds which was a complete mistake, just happened by accident as i positioned the text

and that's it really. any questions about anything feel free to ask. it's been a while since i've seen any tutorials in here and the discussion thread never really caught on and i think it's great to discuss peoples work and techniques. to answer a possibly obvious question, this probably took about 3-4 hours in total, and i'd say 2-3 of those were working on things that made the final cut, the other hour or so was working on ideas that got scrapped. as i said at the beginning i was incredibly happy with how this turned out, far better than i thought it would given the original materials and idea so it's something i'm gonna have more goes at. if anyone wants to try something similar, or is after something similar but struggling let me know and i'd be glad to offer help or advice.

Fantastic stuff Lukin and a great sig. You work in a much more sensible way than me, although I can totally relate to your though process.

haha cheers, but i wouldn't be so sure. it's alright when it's finished, and i know where i started, and i can draw a line from A-Z and show you how it was done. but when i'm actually doing it it's all over the place, ideas coming and going, certain elements working better than others.

but like pretty much everything i've ever made, it turned out much better than, but absolutely nothing like, how i originally imagined it would!

Thanks for this Lukin, awesome job on the sig and the tut. Had no idea the work on the sig was so extensive, which is a good indicator of how well you integrated everything (totally seamless!)

Originally Posted by Lukin

haha cheers, but i wouldn't be so sure. it's alright when it's finished, and i know where i started, and i can draw a line from A-Z and show you how it was done. but when i'm actually doing it it's all over the place, ideas coming and going, certain elements working better than others.

but like pretty much everything i've ever made, it turned out much better than, but absolutely nothing like, how i originally imagined it would!